1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection of integrated circuits and, more specifically, to a self-protected electrostatic discharge field effect transistor (SPESDFET), to an integrated circuit incorporating the SPESDFET as an input/output (I/O) pad driver and to methods of forming the SPESDFET and the integrated circuit.
2. Description of the Related Art
An electrostatic discharge (ESD) event may cause extremely high currents to flow through the semiconductor devices in an integrated circuit and, thereby cause device junctions, gate oxides, and other adjacent structures to be permanently damaged. As device sizes are decreased and device density is increased with technology scaling, it has become increasingly challenging to achieve adequate protection against such ESD damage. For example, with older technologies, a single silicided N-type field effect transistor (NFET) alone could adequately function as an input/output (I/O) pad driver, providing the necessary protection against ESD discharge. However, with technology scaling, such a single silicided NFET is no longer robust against ESD discharge.